Just over a year ago, we experienced one of the most dramatic synchronized global market meltdowns ever, and the after-effects are still resonating. For many, it was like being tied to the railway tracks as a locomotive hurtled toward them. You could see disaster coming, but what could you do? Many watched helplessly as the financial malaise trickled through the system until their savings were in ruins and in some cases, they were out of a job too.

Now the recovery is upon us, and dazed Canadians are shaking their heads and trying to figure out what to do next. It’s time to start planning for the future again, but it’s hard to say what kind of future it will be. Given such uncertainty, it’s not surprising that you have more questions than ever: Will I still be able to retire when I hoped to? Are my investments still too risky? How safe is my job? To help out, we’ve taken some of the most common questions we get and asked the experts to answer them. Sometimes the news is good, sometimes it’s bad—but no matter what your problem is, we have an answer to help.

INVESTING

Q: Is this market rally for real? Or could there be another crash?

A: Who better to answer that question than the world’s greatest investor, Warren Buffett. Last fall, as you may recall, the Oracle of Omaha announced in the New York Times that he was going to start buying U.S. stocks. He encouraged others to do the same, but those who did had a bit of a rough ride. After his October column appeared, stock markets plunged faster than a mountain climber who just lost his grip.

Since March though, stocks have been on a tear, and those who bought when Buffett suggested are in the black. You’d figure he would be pleased. But he’s not. In another op-ed New York Times piece over the summer, Buffett sounded almost despondent. Rather than predicting another bull market, he warned the masses of government stimulus spending would come back to haunt us. “Before long we will need to deal with their side effects,” he warned.

Such ominous words made many fear the “double dip” scenario, in which we see another tumble in the market, perhaps even worse than the first. But few seem to be expecting something quite so dramatic. Certainly, given that the market has bounced out of this recession faster than any other in history, we shouldn’t be surprised if we do have another nasty stumble, but the more worrying scenario may be that we drift sideways from here, and drift for a long time.

The problem, says Aron Gampel, deputy chief economist at Scotiabank, is that the recovery so far has been due to three temporary factors, and as the impact of those factors wanes, the economy could lose steam. The first factor is the government’s fiscal stimulus, the next is the current low interest rates, and the third is the drastic inventory slashing that companies did last year, which helped to provide a bounce this year as the supply chain was replenished.

For now, those three factors are acting like high-octane fuel driving the economy, says Gampel—but at some point that fuel will run out. Government spending will be pulled back, interest rates will rise, and businesses will stop restocking their warehouses. “There’s isn’t any sign that we’re into any sustainable expansion. It’s going to be a very weak recovery and we should brace for it,” says David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at investment firm Gluskin Sheff. “We can probably go through a couple of quarters of positive growth but it’s probably more a reflection of the extreme bottom that we crawled out of.”

Rosenberg thinks the recovery could be slower even than the sluggish turnaround after the early 1990s recession. Back then, the spending power of thirty-something boomers eventually helped drive the economy back in shape. This time around, consumers have more debt, and 50-plus boomers are trying to save for their retirement. Plus, sooner or later there will need to be tax hikes to pay for the current government spending. “The transition to the next expansionable market is going to be a very choppy one.”